Retro Signs
Beyond Route 66
The mother road extends around the world
Route 66 in the U.S.A. extends from Chicago to LA. Cities all over the world have followed suit, preserving iconic signage similar to that of the Mother Road era.
Arrows
Big, fat, skinny, blinking, twisting, spinning, attached, detached and/or winding The arrow motif was popular in the 50s and quite simply showed you where to go.
Deco Divas
The grand movie and theater palaces in Los Angeles, San Diego and London. After the invention of the moving picture, entertainment accessible to all, signs went up, showing the great movies and plays of the mid-century.
Cocktails
Cheers! The toast to the cocktail from neon signage inside and outside bars and lounges stirs up memories of the Rat Pack years when five entertainers became ubiquitous in the Las Vegas nightclub scene and, later, in television and movies.
Characters
Signs with mascots. Felix the cat, the mascot of a well-known Chevrolet dealership in Los Angeles and Old King Cole Motel in Miami Beach doused big cities and small towns with an escape to cartoon and storybook characters.
The Wild West
American cowboys and the Native Americans were the classic icons of the Western United States. These images made their way to roadside signage all over the world.
One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
From Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco to across the Pacific in Asia, fish is sold all over the world and neon signs are the hook line for catching business.
Father Time
Clocks, big and small, were embedded in many signs or even built on the top of buildings as this one above in Sweden. Showing the conveniences of modernity was a twentieth century trademark.
Space Race
From missiles, rockets and bombs to stars and stardust, with modern signage, the galaxy was the limit.
Images © Matthew Bamberg 2002-2023
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